


bad decisions

by relationshipcrimes



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Dubcon (Vaguely), Knifeplay, Light Bondage, M/M, PIV Sex, Painplay, Porn with Feelings, Switch Shuake, Third Semester (Persona 5), Top Drop, Trans Goro, Undernegotiated Kink, sadism/masochism, unsafe bdsm practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:41:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29071941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: Out of all the ideas Goro Akechi’s ever had, sleeping with his ex-rival-with-benefits-who-he-tried-to-kill about two weeks before Goro’s supposed to die might be—Well, it’s not his worst. It’s just the one he hates the most.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira
Comments: 12
Kudos: 124





	bad decisions

**Author's Note:**

> see the end notes for additional content warnings.

When Akira’s eyes flick to Goro’s mouth for the twentieth time that night, Goro decides, all at once, that he’s had enough. He pays for his syrupy-sweet drink, makes excuses faster than he knows he can get away with, and strides out of the jazz bar into the night care that hits him hard, jolting his sugared-up veins until he’s shaking with something he decides must be anger at Akira and his _maddening_ lack of care for all the ways Goro has hurt him, which is, of course, Akira’s cue to say, “Goro, are you okay?” as he comes out of the club after him.

He should say: Of _course I’m fine_ , or _It’s nothing_ , or _I have better things to do than sit in this club for the seventh time this week with you_. Goro scowls, considering his words carefully now that they’re on a public street colder than hell itself. “What are you playing at?” Goro says instead.

“Just wanted to have a drink with you,” says Akira.

Goro sneers. Who the hell goes out of his way to get a drink with their ex? “Go have a drink with someone else.”

“I wanted one with you.”

 _With the person who tried to kill you twice?_ Or, better: _With the person who fucked you for three months just to get under your skin when he got to see you die?_ Or, best: _With the person who’s going to die in two weeks?_

No, that’s—no. For once in Goro Akechi’s life, he’s got to think about the future, because it’s not his at stake. If there’s even a _chance_ that Akira might hesitate to leave Maruki’s reality on February third, Goro will not take it. That’s just the sort of thing that would happen: Akira slowly becomes more and more enchanted with this world in which he can get a drink at the jazz club with Goro seven out of seven days a week, and at the last second, loses his nerve, if only out of some magnanimous, self-righteous pity for the living dead.

Disgusting. Precisely the sort of cliché trap that they’d fall into. Goro won’t have it.

“If it wasn’t clear,” Goro says sharply, “this alliance is a deal only to escape Maruki’s grasp. There’s nothing more to this.”

“I know.”

Akira’s still looking at him like a loyal dog, if loyal dogs were persistence hunters that sat and watched and waited until you keeled over from exhaustion. (On second thought, that doesn’t sound anything like a dog.) “I _mean_ ,” Goro says, and shuts his mouth tight when he realizes they’re on a public street where anyone can see them. Without a word or explanation, he strides off to an alleyway, unsurprised to find Akira trailing behind him, and once in the safety of shadows Goro can suddenly see the future:

They’ll argue, and Goro will be right but it won’t matter to either one of them. Akira will say something sentimental. Goro will despise him for it, and himself for falling apart a handful of pretty words. Akira will ask, and Goro will gladly go home with him if that’s what he asks. A typical story of a series of dates. End scene.

Goro can’t let it happen. He has to be smarter than that. He can see the mistakes already, can see exactly how they occur, and he’s got to change it now.

“I _mean_ ,” Goro says sternly, “whatever you think we were before November, you are mistaken.”

“You already said that we aren’t anything.”

“I meant it.”

“Did you dislike it?”

In the shadows, something happens to Akira’s face—his eyes seem to grow deeper, brighter, his supremely average face stripped away to leave only his unwavering stare. Sometimes, Goro hates how Akira seems larger than his body, bigger than his skin and bones, only the impression of a person larger and deeper than Goro will ever really know.

When Goro doesn’t respond, Akira steps closer; the streetlamp carves a thick outline of light, rendering the rest of him inscrutable. “I just missed our games.”

 _Games_? Was all those late nights at Leblanc just _games_ to him? Like another round of darts? _There was nothing to miss_ , Goro has to say, even though it would be untrue. He can lie if it’s for Akira’s own good. “Have you ever considered that I might have just been sleeping with you to get you to lower your guard for when I killed you?” Goro says instead, trying to leave it vague.

“Were you?” Akira asks.

 _Fuck_ this boy. Fuck him. “I don’t think it matters, all things considered.”

“Did you dislike it?” Akira asks again, coming closer. Close enough that Goro can begin to make out the pale color of his nose, his lips, his breath sickly sweet with overpriced drinks. “I liked spending time with you.”

“We’re only working together until we defeat Maruki,” Goro says loudly, and then realizes actually he’d barely said it aloud; it was just that Akira is so close, and both of their voices are too loud in Goro’s ears.

“I know. It’s just a deal, right?”

Goro bites his lip because he _had_ said that. Akira watches him bite his lip. _Do not kiss him_ , Goro tells himself, really thinks every single word with emphasis. _This is bigger than you. This is about Akira, and the rest of his life after he leaves Maruki’s reality._ And Akira is staring quite fixedly at Goro’s mouth, watching Goro watching him.

“Then you should also know that whatever you thought we were before November, it’s long over,” Goro says quietly.

“I thought we weren’t anything,” says Akira readily. “You’re the one who said this was just for fun.”

Ah.

So sleeping with Goro for four months really _hadn’t_ meant anything to him. Maybe Akira just—was using _him_ for sex all this time. God, all those years of paranoia that someone might take advantage of him for his looks and his body and it happened anyway, did it? Of course it did. Of _course_ it did—

“Goro?” asks Akira. He reaches out, his hand looming larger and larger in Goro’s vision until his fingers are cold against his cheek, too light against his skin. _Don’t kiss him_ , Goro thinks _, do not kiss him, please just don’t kiss him_ , just as Akira’s lips stop a breath away. Goro closes the gap himself without any hesitation at all, kisses like he’s desperate for Akira’s mouth, hopes like hell that when February comes, Akira’s heart will bleed even a little.

*

The key to a good fight is distance.

With swords, guns, bows and arrows, any sort of weapon Goro’s used—the key to fighting well isn’t good form, good balance, solid knowledge of the weapon at hand. Those are the fundamentals. The trick to putting all of those into action is to figure out how to keep yourself not so far away that you can’t get your enemy, and not so close that they can get _you_.

Most of the dancing and footwork is about maintaining the right amount of distance. A very careful equilibrium, knowing that the first person who steps too far or too close is the one who’s irrevocably fucked up. Keep up the equilibrium too long, and the two duelists get locked in orbit, at eternally the perfect arm’s length, rotating around each other for fear of losing the other.

See, things would be more straightforward if they’d broken up, but they hadn’t, because they’d technically never been ‘dating’ in the first place. They hadn’t _been_ anything, on the principle that one must be close enough to one’s target to punch a bullet between his eyes but not too close that he can destroy you back. The primary issue, of course, was that Goro is not an idiot, and seducing your target and then falling for him later is exactly the sort of cliché garbage that Goro had seen over and over again.

He was well aware of it, he was expecting the possibility and the danger, and he resolved, of course, that it would not happen to him. Way back in September, he told Akira himself, even, to seal the deal: “It doesn’t mean anything,” Goro had said with a polite smile, the sort that he gives to fans when they’re sitting next to him on the subway asking for an autograph, except that they’d been sitting side by side on Akira’s garbage excuse for a bed wearing almost no clothes. “Think of it like one of our competitions. A game. Like a round of darts.”

“I see,” Akira had said, and before Goro could parse the intonation on that, he’d said, like he was just now deciding this fact about himself: “Then it doesn’t mean anything to me, either.”

Goro had felt his teeth grit together. He’d made himself relax. How _extremely_ fucking arrogant of Akira to think that he, attic trash of society, could declare that sleeping with the beloved Detective Prince of Tokyo meant nothing to him, but if Akira wanted to be so bold, then Goro would consider it… an _interesting_ play on his part, to say the very least. “I’m glad we understand each other,” he’d said with supremely plastic cheer, which had made Akira snort, and kiss him anyway, right on the stiff fake smile. With Akira’s face so close to his, eyelashes closed against Goro’s cheek, Goro had figured _Oh, what the hell_ and kiss him back as honestly as he could in this blind spot, right up against his lips, where Akira couldn’t see his real face.

*

Just like they used to, Goro goes back to Leblanc with Akira, makes him turn off all the lights. He keeps his mouth shut except to tell Akira what to do. Akira, for _some_ ungodly reason, still has not purchased a set of curtains for his window even after months of Goro pestering him to do it, so the lights off isn’t enough to hide the way Akira’s arms frame Goro’s chest, trapping him to the mattress, caging him in. Trading freedom for force of love, which still isn’t strong enough to make Goro’s brain stop thinking over and over and over again that they’d been sleeping together for three months— _three months_ —and it hadn’t meant _anything_ to Akira. Nothing? Really?

 _Nothing_?

Goro leaves before Akira wakes up. Akira texts him, _Hey you left?_ and then later _I’m free at lunch btw_ and then even later _We’re going to the Palace today at 4_ , which Goro reads and rereads, trying to hear concern, or worry, or literally anything that might indicate that Akira gives a fucking damn about him until he makes himself stop in favor of doing homework for a semester he’s never going to finish and, when he can’t stop thinking about Akira’s fucking half-sentence texts, watching newsreels of Shido’s pre-trial proceedings in his one-bedroom apartment.

*

Goro thinks he should not be blamed for being in a terrible mood that puts off just about every Phantom Thief during their trek through Maruki’s palace the next day, and also it’s none of their fucking business if their illustrious, wonderful, do-no-wrong leader upon whose good judgment their lives depend is spending his nights wining and dining and also banging their resident Judas. He must be really working up a storm cloud around him because only Yoshizawa goes anywhere near him, leaving him to bandage his own wounds alone with her and a bottle of Takemi’s healing gels, back turned to the rest of the group while the rest of them fall over themselves trying to figure out who’s going to be unlucky bastard to have to expend energy on a healing spell for him.

It winds up being Niijima. Not important enough for Joker to come over and do it himself, apparently. Goro catches Akira’s eye from across the safe room as the Diarahan rains down. Goro looks away first.

“Is there…” says Niijima, and then visibly reconsiders her question at the look Goro throws at her. Her entire face hardens. “I hope you will be less reckless in future battles,” she says diplomatically, in a tone of voice that twists her words towards its crueler meanings.

“I plan on it,” says Goro, and hauls himself up for the last hour of their palace run.

He decides, during the quieter moments of mapping out the endless medical halls, that last night was a terrible decision, which shall not be repeated. It’s not a hard decision to make, considering how straightforward and incredibly obvious it should be that staying far away from Akira is the right thing to do. This is one of those things where if Goro said to an unrelated third party, _Should I or should I not sleep with my ex-friend-with-benefits who I have complicated not-just-friends feelings for and also tried to murder?_ the obvious answer would be _NO_ , with a capital N and a capital O.

For god’s sake, whether or not you tried to murder him, you don’t _fuck your ex_.

— _Even if_ you’re going to die.

And it’s cruel to sleep with Akira knowing it won’t last, for that matter. Unusually cruel, even for Goro, who’s spent most of his life being cruel. This isn’t the right thing to do, unquestionably, even though Goro probably isn’t really ever going to have the chance to do the right thing, if he’s only got until February third to live. Even though sometimes you’ve got to take what you can get, and even though sometimes cruelty’s all you have. Even though, for fuck’s sake, at least it feels like Goro’s decision of his own free will. (Does it?)

—No, he can’t do this. He has to put a stop to it. He’ll say that last night was a one time thing, never to be repeated, and say every nasty thing he can think of to get Akira to leave him alone if he must. Not like it’ll be hard, since it obviously means so _fucking little_ to Akira, of course. He can find some other fuck. It’s not like Tokyo has a shortage of pretty faces, since _apparently_ that was the only thing that all of their rivalry really meant to him. (Did it?)

“Let’s call it here,” says Akira when they reach the next saferoom. He doesn’t even look at Goro when he turns to his team—his team which does not include Goro, of course, because Akira is a leader of a group of Thieves and not anything in particular to Goro, really, barely even his rival, barely worth competing against—“Good work today, everyone.”

“We can still go a little more,” says Niijima. “I still have some energy in the tank. You’ve barely cast any spells today.”

“No, he’s right,” says the cat. “This palace is far bigger than most. We’ve got to pace ourselves if we’re going to make it through.”

“Endurance means taking care of your body and health,” says Yoshizawa.

“Alright!” says Takamaki cheerfully, stretching her arms over her head. “Good work! No Palace run tomorrow, right?”

“Just rest up,” says Akira.

“Ugh, gladly,” says Sakamoto, “this place has been killer on the weaknesses… Yo, Akira, are you coming?”

The Thieves disassembling is always a chaotic event, as everyone takes advantage of the places where the cognition is thin to slide between cognitive reality and directly back into the real world. They usually go singularly, except for Sakamoto, who usually pairs with Akira. Goro himself is usually the first one to hightail it, wanting nothing to do with whatever chummy conversations the Thieves want to hold after the missions are over, but this time Akira looks at him for a long second as he tells Sakamoto, “Ah, no. Just need to talk to Crow about tactics.”

 _Tactics_. Goro can feel his own hackles rise. He lets his disgust show; better to prepare Akira for when Goro crushes whatever this rivalry—relationship— _rivalry—_ meant to him.

“Hm? Need me to stay with you?” Sakura asks.

“No, we won’t go out into the palace. Thanks.”

“Hmm, well, it’s not safe to be in here by yourself!”

“I’ll have Crow,” says Akira.

“Dude, that’s…” Sakamoto begins, and then takes a look at whatever Goro’s got on his face, and (wisely, for once in his life) thinks better of it. “Ugh. Okay. Text me when you get home, dude.”

“I will.”

Sakamoto seems like the one person Akira might tell if he’d just gone through a break-up. Goro can’t even imagine Sakamoto’s face if Akira texted him after this, _I just got dumped by Goro Akechi_ and have to explain the whole nasty, sordid story of how Goro’s been dirtying up their perfect leader for entire months without the Thieves’ knowledge. Goro can’t even imagine what Sakamoto might say if Akira confessed to feeling _sad_ that Goro wants nothing to do with him anymore.

Or maybe Akira just won’t care at all and won’t even think to have to tell anyone about it, and he’ll just text Sakamoto _I’m back at Leblanc_ without any emotion whatsoever. Like Goro isn't even worth his anger. Goro feels the sharp points of his claws dig hard into the leather palm of his glove.

The second the rest of the Thieves are out, it’s just him and Akira and the empty table in the middle of the safe room. “This has to end,” says Goro promptly.

“You’re the one who kissed me yesterday,” Akira replies.

“It doesn’t matter. A mistake. I don’t expect anything from you beyond our alliance against Maruki.”

“You didn’t like it?” Akira asks again.

It’s not a _question_ of whether not Goro likes sleeping with Akira. Goro wishes that Akira would, for once, get a fucking clue that _obviously_ Goro likes it because he keeps goddamn doing it. “I’m saying that I don’t have any ridiculous expectations of you. We weren’t anything. You don’t need to feel obligated to give me your time after everything that’s happened.”

“Don’t speak for me,” says Akira.

“I’m not,” Goro snaps, and then realizes maybe he was. “I’m speaking for myself. It’s over, Akira.”

“There wasn’t even anything to end. You’re the one who said it’s just sex.”

They’re literally having the same argument they had last night. “I’m not arguing with you on this,” Goro says. “ _I_ say that this isn’t going to continue.”

“Do you want it to end?”

“It doesn’t matter what anyone wants, Akira.”

For the first time, Akira looks almost frustrated. “Can you take that helmet thing off?”

Goro’s eyes narrow. “What for?”

“I just want to see your face. I can’t with all the neckguard in the way.”

Goro is very, very glad the helmet is still on when he says that, because he isn’t sure what face he makes just then. Eventually, he takes the helmet off—both pieces, both the top and the neckpiece, until he’s just standing there with the high spandex collar up to his throat. Hates that he feels more naked without the helmet standing here in this spandex leotard than he did last night. It feels humiliating. He could not feel worse about this than if he’d done a striptease for Akira. He can’t stand the way Akira smiles a little when Goro pulls it off, like he’s actually glad to see him. This entire arrangement would be _intolerable_ if it weren’t going to end in February.

Just then, Akira reaches for Goro’s hand to pull him closer, and suddenly Goro can, once again, see exactly how this is going to go: He’ll say some nice words, Goro will be flattered against his will because he’s such a dumb fucking idiot who wants to think Akira means anything when he says it (which he might, actually, because Akira is not someone or something that Goro pretends he understands), Akira will pull him close, and with Goro’s helmet off, they’ll wind up making out in the goddamn safe room like—well, like teens, which they are, which Goro despises for how much of a cliché it is for teenagers to be horny all the time and doubly despises both himself and Akira for making the cliché unfortunately true.

Goro snatches his hand right out of the air and yanks it away. Akira winces. “What’s wrong with you?” he snaps.

Akira’s the slight expression of someone in pain who’s trying very hard not to let it show, and also trying to not look like he’s more into it than he’s supposed to be. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“That is the _last_ thing I want to do. There is _nothing_ to talk about.”

“Okay,” says Akira readily. “Okay. Really.”

“I _mean_ it,” Goro says darkly. The metal claws of his glove grind against Akira’s soft forearm. “If you want a quick fuck, go find someone else.”

Akira’s face is flushed. His breathing a little too shallow.

The little masochist is getting _horny_ off this argument.

“I want you, though,” Akira says. “It’s not fun with anyone else.”

Goro _hates_ him. What the fuck does Akira know about _wanting_ someone? About wanting anything? Why is it that Akira doesn’t seem to care about anything Goro did? Like all of Goro’s best efforts to put this smug son of a bitch in the ground weren’t even enough to hurt his feelings? Like nothing he’d done had really mattered?

“And I suppose the part where I tried to kill you isn’t a complicating factor,” Goro says lowly.

Akira smirks. “Please. I didn’t even die.”

Goro leans in, until he’s trapping Akira against the table. Akira’s arm is tense in his iron grip. Akira lets him push him backwards, easily, without any fear at all, handing Goro all the space and all the control, so that Goro doesn’t feel like he’s in control at all.

Even back when they’d slept together before November, Goro had never felt in control even when he’d been on top, sometimes thinking to himself, _He’s only letting me be on top, he’s just giving this to me_ , without bothering to think that maybe things freely given were more valuable. (That's just nostalgia talking. Obviously the most valuable things are anything with a price.) Even when he’d let his pleasant façade slip and really pinned Akira to the sheets and tried to make it _hurt_ , Akira had never stopped acting like it was a big fun game, like all the bruises were just Goro playing around. And no matter how Goro bared his teeth and railed into him, Goro had always felt like a very small bug caught in the honey jar, thrashing against the very sugar that would drown him alive.

Goro hates him so, _so_ much.

“Come on,” Akira says softly. His entire face is glowing with the flush across his cheeks. “I missed our games.”

A game like it doesn’t mean anything? A game like a round of darts? A game like two rivals? _What are you playing at?_ Goro wants to ask, as if he could ever say such a thing without conceding defeat.

“I don’t understand you at all,” Goro says instead, bitterly.

Akira smiles smugly. Kisses Goro once, and Goro doesn’t even try to pull away. “What about… Best two out of three orgasms?”

Goro stares at him. “You want to fuck _here_?”

Akira squirms against him, twisting, and Goro abruptly realizes he’s still holding Akira’s arm far too tightly, hard enough to bruise. And the little shit really _is_ getting off on it. “It’ll be fun. Like a competition. This way you can be rougher,” he says quietly.

“Be practical. Even safe rooms are still dangerous.”

“No they’re not. And I can use Personas to heal whatever you do,” Akira goes on. His voice drops lower with the obvious implications: “You can be as harsh as you like.”

Akira means that Goro can be as harsh as _Akira_ wants him to be, the kinky bastard. Goro cannot _believe_ him. “You’re going to use your Persona to heal your unsafe sex practices?”

“Jealous because you don’t have any healing spells?”

Never once in his entire teenaged hormonal life has Goro ever thought about using the Metaverse for sex. Never _once_. And Goro is not someone who thinks infrequently about sex. This is insane, which is high praise coming from Goro, a person who is certified insane by all of Akira’s friends. Goro loves Akira so much.

“Or are you afraid that you’re going to lose?” Akira says smugly.

Goro leans in until their foreheads are almost touching. Stares him right in the eyes.

As if Goro Akechi has ever once allowed himself to lose. Not at anything.

And _especially_ not to Akira.

“What are the rules?” he says quietly.

“First one to make the other come wins.”

Goro feels his own face split into a wide grin. “Oh, that’s all?” says Goro, and before Akira can say another word, Goro pulls off his left glove (he’ll keep his right glove on for… activities) and starts unbuttoning Akira’s pants.

“Ah—wait, wait—"

 _Wait?_ This was _his_ idea, wasn’t it? “For what?” Goro presses the flat palm of his gloves to Akira’s cock through his underwear, a sharp-toothed kiss to Akira’s lips. “A green light? A referee?”

“I didn’t think you’d start _now_ —"

“You’re just underprepared for your own game,” says Goro mockingly. “You set yourself up to lose.”

The ‘deer in headlights’ look is too cute on Akira’s face, cuter than Akira has any right to be considering how much heartache this bastard has singlehandedly caused in Goro’s life. Everything is worth it to see Akira jolt as Goro strokes his dick with nothing but spit like it’s the first time they did this and Akira was just an inexperienced second-year, fumbling through Goro’s suggestions and pretending he knew more than he did.

If Goro plays this right, Goro’s going to win this game before Akira can even get up the will to resist, which is exactly the way that Goro wants it.

“You’re so easy,” Goro says against his lips. Akira licks into his mouth, and Goro pulls back, furious at the fucking _gall_ of him, to just kiss Goro like he has any right to. “Aren’t you supposed to be the leader of the great Phantom Thieves? And you’re just going to let the person who betrayed you push you around?”

Akira beams at him like nothing would make him happier. Goro’s temper snaps. He shoves Akira back on the cold table, tucks his hair behind his ears as best as he can (no rubber bands on him because he didn’t expect, _obviously_ , that he’d be blowing the one person he told himself he would not blow today), yanks Akira’s pants down past his hips without waiting for him. Akira reaches for the seams on Goro’s outfit, only for Goro to push him back down with the hand still wearing the clawed gauntlet.

The sharp points tear easily through the thin vest, resting dangerously on his soft stomach. Akira winces at the too-tight pressure. Goro presses harder, until the claws threaten to break skin. Akira hisses.

It obviously hurts. Goro really tries not to hate Akira too much nowadays, but by god, Goro fucking hopes it hurts.

“Safeword?” Goro says.

“Keep going,” Akira says instead.

Goro crumples the vest with one hand, the gauntlet easily shredding most of the material as he crushes it between his bladed fingers, ripping holes until he can literally tear it off his body. Akira gasps as he nicks the vulnerable skin underneath. The first smell of iron is sharp in the air. (Akira better not be kidding about using healing spells.)

“You’re such a little masochist,” Goro tells him.

“That’s _your_ fault,” says Akira with a wide grin.

One day Akira’s going to sleep with someone else and he’s going to have to tell whoever it is that he has a thing for when people hurt him and scratch him and bruise him up and Akira’s going to have to think of who taught him that. Akira’s going to have to think of him. Goro shoves Akira’s legs apart to get closer, pulling apart the remains of his shredded vest to drag the pointed edges of his gauntlets across skin, the vicious points too close to the sensitive skin of his nipple. With his ungloved hand, he grabs skin and twists _hard_. Akira shudders, gasping without sound.

Someone forgot about the game, Goro notes. Fine. More for him, then. “Take off your pants,” he says, and feels more satisfaction that he should with how fast Akira jumps to it.

He trails lovebites down Akira’s chest as he likes, taking his time with it. Emphasis on the _bite_ : Goro sinks his teeth around his nipples, into the vulnerable parts below his ribs, working his way down to the soft skin of the inner thigh, making sure he can see every indent of his teeth as he goes. Anywhere his claws managed to scratch or wound, Goro makes sure to suck hard, to make it _really_ hurt. Above him, Akira’s breathing gets faster, more uneven. The harder Goro makes it hurt, the more Akira squirms under him.

“You can do worse,” Akira says, sounding a little out of it already, so Goro pushes Akira’s legs even further until he gasps from the stretch, digging his clawed glove into Akira’s thigh. Blood beads in tiny drops through the lines. (He’s got to remember to stay away from the veins in the inner thigh, whether or not Akira can use healing spells here. Really, Goro’s gauntlets aren’t for show; even the slightest pressure causes red scratches up and down his tender skin.) 

Akira’s cock is only half-hard against his stomach, but Akira always told him that was normal for him when it comes to pain. From his dazed, blissed-out expression, Goro would say it’s going quite well.

 _Maybe this is why he likes me_ , Goro thinks in the back of his head. Can’t find anyone else in his life to hurt him the way he likes it. “One of these days I’m going to get a real piercing set, since you’re such a masochist,” Goro remarks lightly, scraping his clawed thumb against Akira’s thigh. “Hm? You can bleed from the needles while you fuck me.”

“Fuck, wait, yes, Goro—"

Goro’s ungloved hand pinches the inner thigh skin close to his sac, twists hard until Akira’s whole body jerks, cock jumping uselessly. Akira keens softly.

“Or I’ll just do it myself with my claws,” Goro murmurs. “Shred your entire back with them. Would you like that?”

“Do it,” Akira says hazily. “ _Please_ do it. I can heal it afterwards—Goro…”

Blood wells up around Goro’s grip on Akira’s leg as the gauntlet squeezes into his skin. Akira sucks in a breath, moans.

Goro can _feel_ him shaking with adrenaline. “You like that?”

“I do, I really do,” Akira says breathlessly.

“Tell me how much,” says Goro, and finally leans down to suck the tip of Akira’s half-hard cock.

He likes it, actually, when Akira isn’t fully hard to begin with, and he can feel Akira growing swollen and taut in his mouth. He wants to feel the proof of how much Akira wants him heavy on his tongue. Above him, Akira’s making some undignified noise as Goro works down from the head, laving the underside of his cock without a hint of teeth. No games or tricks, the sort of sudden and complete dedication to Akira’s cock that he knows gets Akira to come embarrassingly fast, because Goro has _not_ forgotten about the rules and he is going to end this ridiculous game before Akira even knows what hit him.

“God,” Akira gasps, “hang on, slow down…”

He sounds so overwhelmed, poor thing. His own fault for proposing this stupid game. Goro has no intention of slowing down, but he does pull off, jerking Akira with his ungloved hand at a fast, rough pace that _must_ hurt at least a little. Akira’s entire body struggles to curl in on itself. “Tell me how much you like it,” Goro says viciously, instead of the much more pathetic, _Tell me how much you like me._

“Just keep going,” Akira says, “please, you can do anything—”

"Tell me how much it hurts,” Goro snarls.

“So much, it’s so good,” Akira gasps, “it’s perfect, it feels— _ah_ —"

Goro returns to rolling the cockhead along his tongue with relish. His ungloved hand cups Akira’s balls, long fingernails scratching the sensitive skin there as Goro’s pace speeds up, pulling long hard drags over Akira’s cock like he’s going to pull Akira’s orgasm out of him if it kills them both.

“—Goro— _Goro_ —fuck you’re so good at this… you’re so good, I can’t believe, ah, Goro—"

For a second, Goro closes his eyes, ready to just let his mind go blank and forget everything except worshiping Akira’s cock and Akira’s incoherent praise, when Akira’s fingers thread through his bangs, pushing his hair up and away. When he looks up as best as he can, Akira’s staring at him with such a dopey, smitten look that Goro can’t help but dig his ungloved fingers deep into the bruises on his abused inner thigh until Akira gasps and looks away. “Goro, please,” Akira whines, as if Goro isn’t already doing everything he can.

Goro hollows his cheeks and sucks more and more desperately, trying to stretch his lips as far down the base as he can with a furious focus until finally Akira twists, his legs shaking involuntarily around Goro’s shoulders. “Your hand, harder—” Akira begs, and on a whim Goro pulls off his cock entirely to rake the pointed claws hard down his thigh.

Akira shouts and comes. Blood bubbles from the broken skin down his bare leg. Goro pumps him roughly until Akira’s face screws up with pain, and then a little more until Akira cries out, until tears collect in the corners of his eyes, torturing one last spurt of come out of him on the pain alone. All of Akira’s limbs collapse on the table like a cut puppet. Goro lets out a breath, makes himself breathe again.

If one of the Phantom Thieves walked back in here, they’d kill Goro on the spot for what looks like an assault and murder scene. The top of Akira’s thigh looks mauled by a grater. The inner thigh collected an assortment of bruises somehow. His vest is very obviously ripped apart with human hands, his chest covered in teeth marks and cum and red welts where Goro had pinched and twisted skin. Around Akira’s wrist, a very obviously hand-shaped bruise has blossomed in a vivid purple, where Goro had held it far too tight. His cock is still shiny with spit and semen, lying limp in the open air like a sordid afterthought. If not for the heavy breathing of Akira’s chest, Goro would have assumed he was dead.

“Akira?” Goro says, voice quieter and more uncertain than he wishes it were. Looking at his handiwork after the high is passed, Goro actually feels a little uneasy, and he’d really rather Akira get healed sooner rather than later. They’d also just… never gone this far, and they’d barely talked about it, and now there’s really way more blood streaming down Akira's skin that even Goro was expecting, and…

This is an _incredibly_ stupid thing to get worked up over considering that Goro has seen the insides of Akira’s brains on an interrogation room table, metal and plain exactly like the one Akira’s lying on now, and has seen all sorts of gore in his years in the Metaverse, anyway. Still, the weird, sickening dread mounts, until Goro finds himself shaking Akira lightly, like a lost kid.

“Akira,” says Goro more insistently. He knows it’s irrational, he can _see_ Akira breathing, but he can’t shake the sudden conviction that he’s finally killed him somehow, or at least that he’s made some terrible mistake he can’t take back, and maybe Akira can’t heal all these wounds after all. And he knew he—he was angry at Akira (when is he _not_ angry at Akira), but he hadn’t wanted to—he didn’t mean to take it out on him? Except that he had? He leans as far over him as he can without crawling onto the table with him. “Hey. Hey!”

“This was such a good idea,” says Akira’s blissed-out voice.

The dread switches instantly to a cold, tight nausea in his gut. “Are you alright?”

“I’m great,” says Akira dazedly. “Everything… hurts. I’m really great. I’d kiss you right now but I don’t know if I can move.”

Akira says it like a joke, but Goro can’t find it in himself to laugh. “Are you going to heal yourself or not?”

“I wanna enjoy it,” Akira sighs.

 _The little freak_ , Goro thinks with a truly unfortunate amount of fondness.

Goro’s life is so bizarre right now. This doesn’t feel real. Well, technically it isn’t, considering that he died a few months ago, and now he’s spending his undeserved purgatory giving his—whatever Akira is—blowjobs in the Metaverse and then panicking like a virgin. He shouldn’t have agreed to this in the first place. Between the two of them, Goro is the older one and the one with more experience; he should have said no to the entire idea of abusing Persona abilities just for Akira’s wild taste in sex. He should have said no to having sex with Akira in _the first goddamn place_ , which is in fact the entire reason why they’re here.

“Wait,” says Akira. He still sounds a little loopy from coming. He blinks. “I lost.”

“You lost,” Goro confirms primly.

Akira, _somehow_ , starts struggling to sit up, and Goro helps him up the rest of the way while Akira casts a fast Dia to stop most of the leg wound from bleeding. He leaves the lines still shiny and raw. They still look like they hurt a hell of a lot, which, probably, is the point.

Akira stretches on the table like a cat. “That was unfair.”

Goro kind of despises how he feels a little satisfied about winning, even after all that. “You were the one who proposed the rules. And I’m older than you. It’s only natural I’d be more experienced.”

“Best two out of three,” says Akira. He shrugs off his wrecked jacket and vest all the way.

Something about the way it ended makes Goro think that although he _had_ been turned on, he might not be anymore. Goro pulls off the bloody gauntlet instead, unable to stand the sight of it anymore. “Put your clothes back on and find something to wipe yourself off with. You’re already one down. Better to give up while you’re ahead, don’t you think?”

“Come on,” says Akira, and pulls Goro closer to kiss him once more time. He winds his arms around his waist, holding Goro from escaping, which Goro notices but can’t seem to bring himself to stop. “Two out of three means I’d have to make you come at least twice to win. Aren’t you more ‘ _experienced_ ’? What’re you afraid of?”

Goro is _afraid_ that this crazy boy covered in scratches and teeth marks could talk Goro into doing anything he wanted. Goro is afraid that it’s happening already, even. Goro is afraid that he doesn’t have any control or say over what he does, not when Akira is involved, because Akira will ask nicely and Goro will just fall over himself to give him what he wants. Akira crawls onto his lap, straddling him, and Goro can every inch of his naked body through his thin bodysuit, can feel Akira’s lean muscles under Goro’s ungloved fingers, can barely stop himself from kissing back when Akira comes closer. Akira kisses lightly this time, more slowly than Goro likes with not enough tongue, only making Goro more and more frustrated every time Akira pulls away.

“You haven’t even come yet,” says Akira. “Aren’t you still wet? Don’t you want to?”

Well, _obviously_ the answer is going to be yes when there’s an _entirely naked boy_ with his legs spread against Goro's hips and Goro’s trapped in a full-body leotard determined to cockblock him. Goro scowls instead of answering, making Akira smile.

“You should have seen how you looked when you were sucking my cock, Goro,” Akira says, tracing a finger across Goro’s bottom lip. (Ugh, Goro tries not to imagine it, actually. He can’t imagine it’s very flattering, red-faced and drooling around another man’s dick.) But then Akira presses the finger into his mouth, and Goro opens his lips easily. “Ah… you’re so good at this. I don’t even have to ask…”

Goro’s tongue works Akira’s fingers like a cock as he watches him from under half-closed eyelids, until Akira pulls his fingers away. Goro chases them until they slide out with a wet _pop_.

“You’re not fooling anyone playing hard to get,” Akira whispers. Goro stares at Akira’s fingers with naked interest until Akira moves closer, their faces almost touching. “You can just say you want to, you know."

"You're too pushy. All that and you want to go again."

"I missed you," says Akira.

Which is insane, blatantly false garbage, and frankly, Goro doesn't care to know why Akira bothers to say it. It's just sex. It isn't anything. If Goro believed all the sentimental trash Akira said, he'd have him convinced that the biggest inconvenience of the events of November was that Akira had to stop seeing Goro for two months.

“ _You’re_ just trying to convince me into playing again so you can have another shot at winning,” says Goro.

Akira grins. “It’s working, right?”

Goro swallows. His eyes narrow. “Are you going to keep up this time? Or is this just going to be another easy win for me?”

“I won’t let you down,” Akira says, which, knowing Akira, is more a threat than a promise.

“One condition,” says Goro.

“Yeah?”

“We need to stop fucking on this table when there’s a couch right there,” says Goro.

Akira blinks across the safe room. It’s low, and a little narrow, but there is indeed a couch up against the wall. “Because you’re a pillow princess and can’t handle the table,” Akira says.

“It’s _metal_. Shut up and get off the metal table before you slip and die.”

“Carry me, then,” says Akira, in the sort of joking way that means Goro is obligated to _actually_ pick him up by the ass, making Akira laugh in surprise and wrap his injured legs around Goro’s waist. He's heavy as hell, but it's so worth it to carry him across the room to dump him on the couch because Akira looks _delighted_ at it, and all of a sudden Goro remembers why he’d kept seeing Akira, why he’d kept texting him and calling him and inviting him places and following him home. Because Akira is right and it's _fun_ , maybe one of the few fun things Goro’s ever done. And god, if it doesn’t feel good to drag Akira closer to him like a doll, digging his fingers right into Akira’s bruises, all of him entirely at his mercy, all of him for Goro to press into the pillows and kiss—

“Wait!” says Akira. “I need my pants.”

Goro looks at him. “Are we going to have sex with your pants on, Akira?”

Akira smiles secretly. “I have something in the pockets.”

So Goro has to go and get him his pants, like a little whipped dog and increasingly grouchy about it, and it—it hits him right in the sore spot in a not-fun way when Akira pulls out a pack of condoms and a long length of rope. _A leash_ , his mind supplies sourly. Which is unfair to Akira, considering how much Goro has liked being tied up before, and it’s not—it’s not his fault that Goro lets Akira lead him around by the nose.

“You don’t want to?” Akira asks after a half-second of silence.

“It’s cheating,” says Goro archly.

“I thought you weren’t afraid of me winning?” Akira whispers. Everything about him smells like iron right now, especially up close. Goro’s not sure if it’s hot or makes him nauseous.

“So I’m supposed to just let you break the rules?”

“It’s not _against_ the rules. I’m just trying to keep up, Goro.” After a moment, Akira says, “We don’t have to. I just thought it’d be fun.”

Akira waits. Eventually, Goro holds out his wrists for Akira to tie him down of his own free will.

By the time Akira’s done tying Goro’s hands to one of the couch corners, Goro’s just as naked as Akira is, spread out like a specimen on a cutting board, arms out over his head, _in a safe room, in a Palace_ , which Goro is trying to not think about too hard. Akira beams at the sight.

And, apparently, that Dia wasn’t as strong as it was supposed to be, because a few of the scratches on his leg and chest have reopened, leaving Akira’s blood to smear with the sweat on his skin. "Now I’ve got caught you,” Akira murmurs.

“Awfully confident of you.”

“You’re tied up and naked,” says Akira. “Now all I have to do is make you come until you can’t anymore. And you can’t do anything to stop me.”

Goro sort of hates that he thinks that's hot, considering how much of his life he’s spent jerked around by other people pulling his strings. But when Akira grinds his thigh into Goro’s crotch, immediately Goro’s hips move back against him, seeking pressure; and when Akira kisses him, Goro kisses back twice as hard, forcing his tongue into Akira’s mouth. Akira holds his head back by the hair and his jaw open with Akira’s other hand, forcibly opening him up until Goro’s mouth tastes like Akira’s blood.

“I shouldn’t have underestimated you,” Goro murmurs when they break away.

“Nope,” says Akira, pressing a wet, obnoxious kiss to Goro’s cheek just to piss him off. “Too bad you already sucked my dick. I’d love to see you struggle to swallow it like this.”

Goro tries to glare at him like he would not love for Akira to fuck his face like this. Akira smiles smugly. “No choice but to open your mouth and swallow. Would you like that?”

Goro swallows thickly. His fingers curl uselessly where they’re trapped above his head. “Are you all talk, or are you going to actually do something?”

Akira runs a light hand between his legs. He’s already wet, of course—Goro’s been wet ever since the blowjob. “I bet you could come just from me fingering you,” says Akira, rummaging through his own supplies for something to use as lube. “I wouldn’t even have to touch your clit.” But Akira licks his fingers for good measure anyway and slides just the tips in, not nearly enough.

“Don’t tease,” Goro hisses. He should have fucking known Akira would have made a big, slow production of it if he let Akira run the show.

Akira hums. “I wish we had a vibrator here. I could just keep it in for hours on the lowest setting. Do you think you could come at all from that, or would you just get more and more wound up?”

Again Goro pulls at the rope around his wrists, but they don’t give. When Akira starts to really push his fingers in, Goro squirms down on Akira’s hand, only for Akira to pull away. He glares at Akira angrily.

“Problem, dear?” Akira asks.

Goro knees him hard in the side of the ribs, getting him right in one of his bruises. Akira gasps and laughs, and without warning, drags his thumb up beside Goro’s clit.

Goro’s whole body jerks, but he keeps his teeth tightly gritted against any noise. By the time Akira begins fingering him in earnest, Goro sighs at the feel of Akira’s bare skin inside him, legs falling open as Akira works his fingers faster. _Fuck_ if it doesn’t feel different from Goro’s vibrator at home, if only because heat curls in his gut at the sharp focus in Akira’s eyes, watching his fingers disappear inside Goro’s body. Like Goro’s the best thing he’s ever seen. Like he could watch Goro’s pleasure for hours and want nothing else but him. Akira’s thumb circles his clit, careful not to be too rough, and Goro can hear himself start to breathe hard, warmth spreading in all his veins.

“Is that all you have?” Goro demands.

Not the smartest thing Goro’s ever said, because then Akira pulls out his fingers, leans down, and licks achingly slowly up against his hole, ending with a messy suck against his clit. _Fuck_ , Goro must have really been wound up too long, because that feels _way_ better than it should.

Akira does it again, and again, pushing his tongue into Goro’s folds so _god damn slowly_ that Goro gnashes his teeth, makes a whole production of eating him out like it’s fine dining. He sucks the clit like a tiny cock, pulling away any time Goro thinks finally going to speed up, working him back up with his fingers and then moving back to his mouth.

And the _fucking_ thing is that Goro’s can feel the orgasm coming, can feel his gut curl with it. “Wait,” Goro says shakily, willing himself not to babble. “Akira, wait!”

Akira barely lifts his head. His entire mouth is covered in slick. “For what?” Akira asks, just a bit mockingly.

When Goro can’t explain himself, Akira grins against his pelvis, pressing kisses _maddeningly_ close to his clit. Goro makes another noise, muffled with the effort of trying to stay silent. “Going to come? Afraid you’ll lose?”

Goro groans, letting his head fall back, but he doesn’t answer. “What is it, Goro?” Akira says sweetly, leaning up towards Goro’s face to make Goro look at him. With his free hand, he moves three fingers inside him, and it’s hitting all the right spots but it’s not deep enough, not yet. The sound of his fingers moving against Goro’s slick walls is obscenely loud. Goro’s breathing is unsteady with the effort of not making any embarrassing noises. “Hm? Tell me.”

Goro opens his mouth. He can't quite seem to get his thoughts in line, hyper-aware of how close he is to coming as Akira keeps pushing.

“Then I’ll just do whatever I like with you,” says Akira. “Last chance.”

“No!” says Goro frantically, and then with as much bravado as he can, trying desperately not to think about how pornographic this sounds: “Just. Fuck me.”

Akira’s grin is wide and unmerciful. “With…?”

“Are you for fucking real right now,” Goro says.

Akira grinds the palm of his hand into Goro’s clit and that almost does it, really almost sends him over the edge and Goro thinks wildly _I don’t want to come without him inside me_ so clearly that it frightens him. “Fuck you with…?” Akira says again.

“Your cock,” Goro’s mouth says desperately. “Fuck me with your cock, okay, Akira, is that what you want to hear?”

“Say please.”

“I’m going to throttle you,” Goro says.

Akira pulls his fingers out and kisses Goro’s snarl off his face, teeth and all. Goro kisses back without hesitation, relieved Akira isn’t going to make him say any more embarrassing porno lines, even as he whines at the loss of Akira’s fingers. Akira ignores him, rolling the condom on, pressing weirdly chaste kisses to Goro’s stomach. “One of these days I’ll make you actually beg me to fuck you,” Akira says.

If Goro was close to coming before, Goro’s had enough time to get himself together to properly glare at Akira, as if Akira is inconveniencing them both by volunteering to rail Goro into the couch. “I’d like to see you try.”

“One day,” Akira promises.

“Like I would ever—"

Akira thrusts in hard. Goro shuts up, jaw tight as he tries not to make any noise. He can feel how tight his walls are stretched around Akira, feels every inch of Akira’s cock splitting him open from the inside. He missed this so much. Akira’s cock fits inside him is just like he remembered it. Akira rocks in shallowly a few times, getting used to the tight, slick heat again, and Goro tries not to think too hard about how it’s Akira inside him right now, making him feel so full he can taste it.

Things are alright, Goro’s floating brain thinks, when Akira is literally inside him. Maybe Goro does mean something to Akira. He can’t dislike him that much if he likes him enough to fuck him. Like this, it’s so hard to remember that Akira didn’t even like him enough to be upset when Goro betrayed him.

“Good enough for you?” Akira whispers.

Even after all that, Goro just gives him a challenging glare. “You haven’t won yet, have you?”

Akira pulls Goro’s body closer, spreads his legs apart to nearly bend Goro in half, fucks into him hard enough to jerk his body across the couch. Goro’s whimpers feel punched out of him with every thrust. “Good enough now?” Akira breathes, holding Goro where he needs him to fuck him deeper, hissing the words out while breathless from the strain.

It really feels like love now, Goro’s brain thinks. Strong love, strong enough to make Goro’s head spin with how hard Akira’s thrusting. “Akira,” Goro pants instead of a response, and then a moan that he doesn’t quite swallow in time. “Fuck, Akira, ah—”

“You’re so cute,” Akira breathes against Goro’s neck, and Goro thinks _If that’s what you want, I’ll be anything for you, just please—_

Goro adamantly keeps his mouth shut, but his gut clenches hard, already so close to coming and now overflowing with pleasure. His hips move hungrily to meet Akira’s thrusts in time. Akira drags him hard onto his cock, slamming to the hilt every time, like he can’t get enough of Goro, like he’s aching for him just as much as Goro aches for him, can’t stand to be apart any more than Goro can. “Akira,” Goro says hazily, and then again: “Akira—”

“Goro,” Akira breathes, and it sounds so sincere that for a whole moment Goro is convinced that he was wrong the whole time and maybe he really does love him, and it’s so difficult to remember that this isn’t supposed to mean anything as Akira’s hips speed up to an almost desperate, frantic pace and fuck the competition and the rules, actually, nothing else has made Goro feel so accomplished maybe ever in his life, maybe.

Akira leans down to whisper, “Just give up and come,” which was a mistake because just then Goro’s orgasm takes him by surprise and with Akira bent so close over him, Goro bites hard into the meat of his shoulder in a frantic attempt not to make any embarrassing noises when he comes, hard enough that Akira gasps and his hips stutter to a halt. He doesn't even think, just clenches his jaw until there’s the taste of blood where his teeth have sunk into Akira’s skin; he can’t stop moving his hips to fuck himself on Akira’s cock. “ _Shit_ ,” he hears Akira moan, although everything’s gone dim with the haze of coming down, and he groans against the bite mark to feel how much harder Akira thrusts into him as blood begins to slide against Goro’s lips. Panting, Akira thrusts into Goro’s warm hole until Goro goes limp underneath him, and finally Akira grinds out release into Goro’s body with a messy gasp.

For a bit, there’s just the two of them, covered in sweat, Goro staring dazedly at the ceiling, Akira barely functioning and plastered to Goro’s torso. And then, when Goro’s brain comes back online a whole minute before Akira’s, he has to lie there trapped under his ex’s sweaty body, wondering what the absolute _fuck_ he just did.

Not the right thing, that’s for sure. This is one of those things where someone would say, _If you have to wonder, you probably fucked up_. Akira breathes harshly against Goro’s skin, his hair an absolute mess, his bangs slowly dripping warm sweat against Goro’s collarbones. In terms of bad decisions, Akira _really_ makes it hard to regret them.

Eventually, Akira sits up and kisses him again once. Goro melts into Akira’s kiss, no bite at all, just letting Akira taste him. When he murmurs that he’s going to pull out, Goro barely hums and lets Akira do what he likes. It’s not like Goro can do much, with his arms still tied up.

Akira smooths Goro’s sweaty bangs away from his forehead. “How was that?”

“I win,” says Goro faintly.

Akira blinks. The surprise on his face is comical, actually. Goro can’t help himself from smirking. “You came twice. It was best two out of three.”

Akira starts laughing. Not even small giggles, but loud, undignified laughter, still out of breath and leaning over him and covered in Goro’s claw marks. “Okay,” he says, pressing a kiss to Goro’s cheek so fondly that Goro has to close his eyes. “You win.”

*

Well, here he is again. Having slept with the one person on this earth who Goro is not supposed to sleep with.

Great.

At least Goro can say he’s not dying a virgin.

When Akira has undone the ropes, Goro’s arms hurt like hell and, now that the adrenaline has worn off, he really could do without the red marks, too. Akira casts a Diarama and they disappear. Then he kisses him, long and slow like they have all the time in the world, like February isn’t coming fast.

Goro’s tired, and so is Akira, so neither of them say much as Akira cleans his wrists with a disinfectant wipe, as if there’s any wound left there to clean. Without even asking for permission, Akira moves Goro’s arms for him, pulling him this way and that to check for any other injuries (as if Akira is not the one with all the obvious injuries), wiping him down more thoroughly than he needs to just to touch Goro at his softest. Goro lets him. Hopes it won’t end, a little bit. When he’s done, Akira covers him with his own jacket for modesty, like Akira himself isn’t entirely naked.

Then, alone, Akira begins examining his own wounds, entirely unselfconscious that Goro is watching him in silence. Akira’s leg has only gotten worse with round two. The barely-healed wounds reopened, unsurprisingly. The scratches on his chest are bleeding sluggishly. It must have hurt like hell to move like Akira had. Another Diarama and they reknit, leaving Akira to disinfect the remains, like he wants to keep them or something.

 _I’d stay in this reality if he asked_ , Goro realizes.

That’s it, then. Goro just has to accept that no matter what Goro’s resolve might be, no matter what Goro’s convictions might be, no matter how much Goro knows he wants to escape this false reality, if Akira asks, then Goro will follow. Like a dog. Like a puppet. Like someone in love. Resistance is futile, because Goro doesn’t want to resist against Akira. No matter how much he’d hate it, no matter how much he’d despise himself for doing it, he’d learn to like a false world and this gilded prison if Akira asked.

When Akira turns to try and look at the damage to his shoulder, Goro says, “You should heal the bite sooner rather than later. It’s... not shallow.”

Akira’s smile is tired, but satisfied. “Didn’t feel shallow.”

“You should also do something about the scratches,” Goro adds. And then: “That was… I didn’t think. Before I bit you.”

Akira scratches his neck on his unbitten side and thinks it over. “It was hot,” he says truthfully. Goro feels himself smirk.

“You and your masochism. Are you actually going to heal it, or do I have to disinfect itfor you?”

“I’m going to heal it a little," says Akira evasively. "You can just rest. I can clean it myself.”

“It’ll be an awkward angle for you. I said I’ll do it.” With effort, Goro peels himself up off the couch and holds his hand out for the disinfectant. Akira hands it over, somewhat reluctantly.

It stinks like all hell. Akira doesn’t seem to want to heal the bite all the way, so the remains are a vaguely-red, very obviously human teeth outline. Goro’s stomach feels odd at the sight of it. “This is going to scar if you don’t heal it,” Goro warns him, to which Akira just shrugs.

 _Wanting Akira is a mistake_ , Goro thinks, with the tired resignation of knowing that it's not going to stop him. 

Akira can’t quite stop himself from wincing when Goro presses, as gently as he can get away with, the soaked disinfectant cloth to the wounds. Goro tries not to think too much about it. He isn’t sure if Akira would appreciate Goro asking him if he’s okay, because he’s never really done it. He moves on silently to the scratch marks on his back. _I would have thought you’d be getting off to this pain too_ , Goro almost says, but suddenly thinks better of it. Akira keeps staring at the ground, not looking up. His shoulders curl inward. Goro moves to put the disinfectant down, but Akira just shakes his head, and, after a moment of silence, Goro keeps going.

He takes his time and unwraps the healing gauze with a focus as steady as he can make it, spreading it across the planes of Akira’s shoulders with the whole flats of his palms. He traces the nail scratches along Akira’s chest as he examines their severity, then down his back. The pads of Goro’s fingers are still sticky with rubbing alcohol as they follow the same lines Goro’s claws made a few minutes earlier, like he could smooth out the divots he’d made. It doesn’t mean much, when Akira can just heal these wounds in an instant, but he places healing pads where he can.

When he’s done, Akira shifts on the couch and pulls Goro closer. Goro doesn’t protest, lets Akira draw him in, tucks his face against Akira’s damaged shoulder. Goro’s eyelashes brush Akira’s skin, opening and closing. His waist tucks securely into the crook of Akira’s arm. Soon, Akira’s hands rest carefully along the exposed curve of Goro’s spine, and stay there.

**Author's Note:**

> additional content warnings:  
> \- nobody negotiates kinks or boundaries enough  
> \- unsafe sex/bdsm practices  
> \- akira doesn't take no for an answer at one point and it's uncomfortable  
> \- knife/pain/bloodplay  
> \- includes piv sex  
> \- the word clit is used  
> \- nobody touches goro's chest
> 
> i posted this back in june 2020 and then later took it down because having it up made me nervous. i don't know how long i'll keep it online before i get the urge to take it down again, so... read it while you can? haha.


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